Railway ferries at Storebælt

The first railway ferry crossed Storebælt in 1883; the last one did on the
31st of May, 1997. During that period the Storebælt ferries was an integrated
part of the danes' mental concept of a longer train journey. Now the traffic
has been overtaken by fixed link across the Belt - partly bridge, partly
tunnel.

Everything goes faster with the tunnel: this is undoubtedly good for the
railway as a business; and the passengers will learn to live without the
opportunity to have a walk and a bit of food on the ferry. But for the
railfan, the large ferry terminal stations and their diversity of interesting
and frequent shunting manoeuvres can never be replaced. And definitely not by
another 15-20 kilometers of plain double track, be it ever so much on a bridge
or in a tunnel.

I'm preserving the track maps of the old ferry stations in this historic track
map edition. It shows the layout just before domestic freight traffic were
moved to the bridge in late April, 1997. Passenger traffic stayed with the
ferries for little over a month after that.

The old station at Nyborg featured a couple of very wide track fanouts where
the angle between the outermost tracks was close to 90 degrees. At
these points I've been forced to give up any attempt to resemble the actual
geometry and draw a purely schematic maps. I've marked these areas
with a pink bacground.
Inside these, long lines do not necessarily symbolize long real pieces
of track; they're long because that's the only way I could draw all the
swithces in an otherwise clear fasion.

(A):

The outermost sections of the old and
new stations overlapped each other. Early in the rebuilding a section of the
old exit - which I've suggested in gray lines here - was removed and
the exit tracks thereafter made a very tight curve to immediately align with
the position of the new ones. The old connection between the main tracks were
interrupted to make room for a signal that guarded the new station's tracks
against movements in the old one. Instead new connections were built farther
out; these are also used for the new station.

(B):

Some of the shunting tracks in the
exit end of the old station ended rather abruptly, close to where the new
station is built. I suspect they have had a more natural continuation
previously, but I do not have any maps or photos predating the construction
work on the new station.

(C):

The old central station at Nyborg.
Both local and intercity trains called here.

(D):

This track led to the Nyborg workshops
just north of the harbor track fanout. I do not know if these will be retained
after the rest of the station is abandoned and perhaps connected to the new
habor track (J).

(E):

The old ferry station at Nyborg. Train
that connected to the ferry but wasn't themselves taken aboard originated on
these platforms; they would then make their first regular stop at the old
central station (C). Intercities that had been ferried over would not call at
the ferry station but proceed directly to the central station.

(F):

This ferry berth was normally used for
ferries carrying passengers. Three modern »intercity« ferries - Dronning
Ingrid, Kronprins Frederik, and Prins Joachim -
with 4 parallel
tracks on the train deck was delivered in 1979 and 1980, and were used for the
hourly passenger departures. Each of those trips usually had an intercity
train on board, often split into two parts, and some trips also took a
»lyntog« express intercity train. Much freight were also carried on these
trips but older ferries such as Asa-Thor continued to
carry freight between the other 3-track berths at night.

(G):

These tracks a bit away from the ferry
station mostly served as conventional harbor tracks.

(H):

The new station at Nyborg, with
passenger platforms and a freight track grill.

(I):

This track was used for working
vehicles to the new station and line before the entry section at (A) had been
rebuilt. It was later paved over by the access road to the new station.

(J):

At this point in time this track was
still stub-ended, but I supose it is meant to provide access to the harbor
tracks after the rest of the old station area has been commercially developed
as anything but rail.

(K):

Incidentially a long siding tracks
serving a couple of freight customers passed close by the new line. So the new
station connects here, and the innermost customer (Danisco Foods, by the way)
are now served from the other side than they used to be.

(L):

This set of switches connects the
tracks on the fixed link between the West Bridge and the East Tunnel.
Technically they form an automatic remote controlled signalling station named
Sprogø after the island midway in the Belt where bridge and tunnel meet.

(M):

The new station at Korsør.

(N):

This connection track were used for
work vehicle access to the eastern part of the new line before the branch
point at (O) were finished.

(O):

The branch point between the old and
new line is farther from the old station at the Korsør side than in Nyborg. In
the transition period it was signalled as a separate station named Svenstrup.

(P):

This short freight siding is probably
the only part of the old Korsør station that is going to survive the fixed
link.

(Q):

This track was interrupted already
several years before the fixed link, to make room for a catenary pole.
Electrification was added to the old Korsør station rather as a temporary
measure until the fixed link would be finished. Only two tracks leading to the
regional train platform at (S) had any catenary; the rest of the station,
including the freight arrival and departure tracks, had none. (Old Nyborg was
never electrified at all).

(R):

The 3 tracks that are shown in
gray here had already been torn up somewhen during the winter of 1996-97.

(S):

The »intercity« ferry berth at Korsør.
Local trains to Korsør would terminate at the two platforms south of the
berth. Intercity trains that was carried on the ferry would not stop in Korsør
at all but roll directly up to the berth. The other platforms were very
seldomly used.

(T):

The old station building at Korsør, as
far away from the platforms actually used as possible!